San Bernardino County Board Supervisors say two proposed air quality rules would increase costs for families without delivering meaningful improvements.
Supervisor Chair Dawn Rowe and Second District Supervisor Jesse Armendarez have taken issue with two proposed rules being considered by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The rules could add additional fees to all new gas furnaces and gas water heaters sold.
The South Coast district oversees Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties, and a portion of San Bernardino County, including Big Bear Lake, San Bernardino, Fontana, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and other areas.
The Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District oversees San Bernardino County’s High Desert and Riverside County’s Palo Verde Valley.
Increased cost, ‘no real progress’
The air quality management district will consider the rules on Friday, June 6.
Ahead of the discussion, Rowe and Armendarez issued a public letter opposing Proposed Amended Rules 111 and 1121. The supervisors believe the rules will provide “no real progress toward its goal of cleaner air.”
“We simply cannot support yet another policy to extract money from working households,” the supervisors said.
Rowe and Armendarez claim the rules would create a “complicated two-tier mitigation fee scheme whereby consumers will end up paying additional costs for essential services.”
The rules include:
“Additionally, the proposed rules allow these fees to increase annually,” the letter stated. “Both rules are designed to push consumers into paying thousands of dollars to abandon gas heating and replace it with electric appliances.”
Given the difference in costs – hundreds in fees compared to thousands in costs to convert – these goals will not be met, the supervisors stated.
“Meanwhile, families will pay the costs each time they have to replace one of these appliances,” the letter stated. “In addition to the cost of conversion, families who may consider switching to electric power face a state that has done nothing to curtail the rising cost of electricity, and that assumes they even have electricity.”
“Public Safety Power ShutOffs” by utility companies will mean these appliances won’t work during those shut-offs, they added.
Rowe and Armendarez claimed that:
Growing opposition
“Thankfully, a number of groups have taken notice,” the letter stated. “Cities in our region, groups concerned about costs, taxpayer watchdog groups, realtor organizations, and more have joined a chorus of opposition to PARs 1111 and 1121.”
Rowe and Armendarez said they hope the air district’s board of directors will “listen to these voices, and those of families across southern California, to vote down both of these expensive ideas.”
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Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on X @DP_ReneDeLaCruz
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: San Bernardino County supervisors oppose proposed air quality rules that will raise costs
Reporting by Rene Ray De La Cruz, Victorville Daily Press / Victorville Daily Press
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